Information about cruises

I am a French student (in a business school in Paris), and for my education, I am carrying out a survey for a fragrance and cosmetics company. The topic of the survey is "the business of cruise lines in fragrance and cosmetics in the United States". Information is quite hard to find (as this segment is very small and precise) and I would be grateful if you could give me some information about duty free shops (in cosmetics and fragrances) on board.

For example, the information I would need are :

Who are the distributors of fragrance and cosmetics ? What are the names of the shops ?

Which products and brand are sold? (if you have any catalogue or brochure) What are the best sellers ?
Which brands do you prefer to buy and which kind of product (75 ml, miniature, coffrets, skincare and so on..)

How are the shops ? Are the customers free in the shop ? How are the sales people? Are there a lot of incentives and promotions ?

What is the consumer's behavior motivation and profile?

Do you prefer to shop in the ports of call ?

I would like to get your personal impressions about that (and your shopping experience onboard) and any other information, which you consider could be helpful to me.

I thank you in advance and hope you will be able to help me,

Faithfully,

Aurore Kervoern

You have two sets of questions here.. One for the Cruise lines themselves and one for the consumers/travelers.

To find out what brands are on board, who are the distributors, names of shops etc, it would be best to go direct to the cruise lines and their purchasing personal for these answers. That might not be the easiest thing as you are France and many of the lines head offices are in the US. Unless you have a French Cruise Company that can help you.

The consumer questions.. ie, what products do you like to buy and do you prefer to shop inport are more for those travelers who cruise. You may want to find some more cruise related travel sites to answer those questions. or request of a local travel agency in paris to give surveys to their cruise customers to help with this part.

anyway. Good luck.

one more suggestion.. Go in the opposite direction. Go to the perfume makers in France and ask if they sell to cruise lines and find out if they will give some facts and figures about their sales specific to the cruise industry.

This might work.